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CaveLeather “Now!” Solomon swung the Myrish longsword toward the open chest of silver stags.
“Make your choice!” “Anyone willing to live and die with me, anyone who believes my promise — step forward.
One man.
One silver stag.” Three silver stags was roughly a year’s income for a farmer’s entire family.
“But hear me clearly!
The moment you take that coin, I will consider you bound by my word.
You become my soldiers.
You follow my orders without question.” The silence didn’t last long.
One by one, men began moving.
Some walked with shaking hands, some with tears streaking their faces, some in grim silence.
They stepped up to the chest, reached in, and took their silver stag.
They all understood.
Solomon was right.
There was no going back.
If they ran, Lady Roslyn would seize their land and hang them.
Their families would be dragged into the punishment.
Death or worse waited for anyone who tried to slip away.
Their only real option was to believe in Solomon’s promise and his oath.
Luden and Rosslyn watched the line of men taking coins, their faces tight with pain.
Solomon felt the same sting in his own chest, but he knew the truth: coin was just a tool.
When it needed to be spent, you spent it.
Once every last silver stag had been claimed and the men had returned to their places, Solomon spoke again.
“From this moment on, you are my soldiers.” He waited until every eye was back on him.
“Lady Roslyn made me a promise before we left.
Everything we capture on this campaign — every coin, every weapon, every scrap of loot — belongs to me.
I decide what happens to it.” The soldiers glanced at one another, confused.
What did that have to do with them?
Lords always took the spoils of war.
The fact that they were allowed to keep their lives was already more than most levied men could hope for.
Solomon’s gaze swept across their doubtful faces.
Then he raised his voice, speaking slowly and clearly so every man heard every word.
“Now I make you a promise of my own.
All the loot we take — I keep only half.
The other half will be divided among you according to merit.” He paused, then repeated it even louder.
“Divided according to merit!” For a heartbeat the entire camp went completely still.
No one spoke.
The only sound was the wind moving through the trees.
Solomon wasn’t worried they hadn’t understood.
He could see it in their eyes, lit by the firelight.
The fear and uncertainty that had been there moments ago were gone, replaced by something sharp and hungry.
Ambition.
Greed.
Raw desire.
Their eyes gleamed like wolves.
In this world, honest work meant nothing.
No matter how hard a man labored, he could barely feed his family after the lord took his share.
Come winter or a bad harvest, they still went hungry.
Robbery, on the other hand, was the fastest road to wealth.
It was brutal and against every law of the Seven Kingdoms, but that didn’t stop men from turning bandit.
Everyone hated the ironborn for the way they lived, yet plenty of people secretly envied them.
The ironborn paid the iron price — they took what they wanted with steel.
One good raid could earn a man more than ten years of back-breaking labor.
One day could change a man’s life and the lives of everyone he loved.
“Is that true, Lord Solomon?” someone shouted from the ranks.
“By the Seven, every word,” Solomon answered without hesitation.
The soldiers stared at him, disbelief written across every face.
They searched his expression for any sign of a lie.
The hunger in their eyes made Luden and Rosslyn tighten their grips on their swords.
Fear hadn’t disappeared.
It had simply been buried under something stronger — ambition, greed, and the desperate hope of a better life.
They saw it now.
A real chance to rise.
Through violence, through battle, through the kind of luck that only came to men willing to risk everything.
They saw warm food that wasn’t fit for pigs, decent clothes that didn’t let the wind through, solid houses instead of leaking mud huts, women who weren’t half-starved, even the possibility of servants of their own one day.
Breathing grew heavier.
Eyes burned hotter.
The column that had felt like a herd of reluctant farmers only minutes ago now pulsed with a new, savage energy.
These were no longer just men forced to march.
They were men who had tasted the possibility of real wealth and were ready to fight for it.
Solomon stood on the low platform and watched it happen.
He had done it.
He had taken a group of frightened, unwilling levies and given them something to fight for.
Not loyalty to a distant lord.
Not fear of punishment.
Something simpler and far more powerful.
Greed.
He didn’t need obedient sheep who would stand in a line and die because someone told them to.
He needed warriors who wanted to win.
And now he had them.
Solomon looked out over the faces lit by firelight.
From this moment on, the company had a soul.
A hungry, ambitious, greedy soul.
“Good,” he said, voice carrying clearly across the camp.
“Remember the choice you made tonight.
We’re in this together.
One boat.” “If the boat sinks, we go down to the Seven together.” “If the boat reaches shore, we split the treasure together.” He drew the Myrish blade again and leveled it at them, eyes sharp.
“So come on.
Let’s go take what belongs to us.
With our swords.
For me.
For yourselves.
For the lives we’re going to build.” The roar that answered him shook the night.
“Lord Solomon!” “Lord Solomon!” “Lord Solomon!” Swords came out.
Men waved them high, voices raw with excitement.
They already looked like they could march straight into the mountains and tear the wildlings apart with their bare hands.
At the back of the crowd, Toman stood trembling.
His fingers were clenched so tightly around his single silver stag that the edge bit into his palm.
The metal felt real.
Heavy.
More real than anything he had touched in years.
He thought of his father — gone for so long now that everyone assumed he was dead.
He thought of his mother’s tired, empty face and his two little sisters.
He thought of how poor they had been, so poor that they had been forced to promise one of the girls to an old man just to keep the others from starving.
He remembered his father’s last words before he marched away with Lord Balon: “Toman, you’re the oldest son.
The only man left in this house.
You have to take care of your mother and your sisters.” He remembered his mother’s dry, shaking hands gripping his before he left, crying and begging him to come back alive.
He remembered his sisters’ quiet, frightened eyes when they realized what was being decided for them.
And now he looked up at the young lord standing on the platform.
Lord Solomon had given him something no one else ever had.
A real chance.
A chance to change his life.
A chance to change his family’s life.
Toman closed his fist around the silver stag until it hurt.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
Not anymore.
CaveLeather